Alessandro Cipriani

ALESSANDRO CIPRIANI
Born in Tivoli (Rome), 1959

Cipriani completed his studies in music composition and electroacoustic music at the Conservatorio S.Cecilia in Rome with G.Bizzi and G.Piazza. He studied for a time with Barry Truax in Vancouver (Canada).

Since 1989 he has worked on intermedia pieces and audio-video multichannel and interactive installations, often in collaboration with visual artist Alba D’Urbano and director Giulio Latini, on pieces for instruments and electronics and electroacoustic pieces with traditional religious singers.
He has composed soundtracks for creative film-documentaries and silent movies, integrating an advanced concept of fusion between dialogue, sound environment and music, including the soundtrack (in collaboration with Edison Studio composers) of “Inferno” (1911), “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1919), the expressionist masterpiece by Robert Wiene and “Battleship Potemkin” by Ejzenstejn. All three have been published in surround sound DVD by Cineteca di Bologna. Other soundtracks with Edison Studio are “The Last Days of Pompeii” (1913), , and “Blackmail” by Alfred Hitchcock, . He has also co-written (with Luigi Ceccarelli) the soundtrack for the 3D movie by Michel Comte “The Girl from Nagasaki”, the musical operas “Faust” and “Turandot” with National Beijing Opera Theatre, and two dance works by Robyn Orlin, performed at Venice Biennale Dance and Theatre de La Ville in Paris.

His works have received honors and have been selected for performance at Synthèse Bourges, Government of Canada Award, International Computer Music Conference 94, 95, 99, 2002, 2003, 2008, CalArts/RedCat Festival – Walt Disney Hall, Los Angeles, Venice Biennale, Opera Theater Leipzig, (Germany) International Symposium on Electronic Arts, Musica Nova (Praha), Newcomp (U.S.A.), Inventionen (Berlin – Germany), Nuova Consonanza (Rome), Ravenna Festival, Engine 27 (New York), Festival d’Automne (Paris) etc.
He has been tenured professor of electroacoustic music at the Conservatory of Catania (Ist. Mus. V. Bellini) from 1995 to 2003 and at the Conservatory of Frosinone (Rome) since November 2003. A compilation of electroacoustic pieces by his students from Sicily has been published on Electronic Music Foundation label (New York).

He has taught and lectured about his music and his theory of ‘electroacoustic tradition’ at several Academies (Sibelius Academy – Helsinki, Accademia S.Cecilia- Rome etc.) and Universities in Europe, Canada and the U.S. (Simon Fraser University – Burnaby B.C., Californian Institute of the Arts (Los Angeles), University of Rome “Tor Vergata, University of California – Santa Barbara, Univ. of Catania, MedienKunst Dept. of Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, Leipzig, DMU University, Leicester etc.).

He has published analytical and theoretical papers in several journals (Organised Sound, Musica/Realtà, etc.) and has published the textbooks “Virtual Sound” and “Electronic Music and Sound Design” (written in collaboration with M.Giri and R.Bianchini) and adopted for computer music courses in various Universities and Conservatories in Europe, South and North America.

His CD “Il Pensiero Magmatico” in collaboration with Stefano Taglietti is available on Edipan label. Other pieces can be found in the International Computer Music Conference ’95 and ICMC’99 CDs. A monographic CD, “Al Nur”, including all his works with oral tradition musicians and his trilogy on religious chant, was released on CNI Compagnia Nuove Indye. Computer Music Journal (M.I.T. Press) selected one of his multi-channel pieces (in surround 5.1) to be included in the annual DVD in 2003, released on CMJ 27 (4). A piece written for Iranian percussionist Mahammad Ghavi Helm has been published on CNI-RAI Trade label. A 5.1 piece on DVD has been released on Everglade Records (USA) and an acousmatic piece on XXI Musicale – Elettronica Italiana Vol.2.

His music has been broadcast by RAI, CBC and several other national radio networks as well as performed at festivals in Europe, China, South-America, Canada, and the U.S.A. He is one of the founding members of Edison Studio in Rome. He is also member of the Editorial Board of the review Organised Sound (Cambridge University Press). For this review he has been guest editor of a special issue dedicated to the relationship between electroacoustic music and Local/Global culture with articles by Trevor Wishart, Barry Truax etc.